For reasons known to the men of the Australian Imperial Force, I am always interested in meeting others who wear the green badge on their arm. A good soldier is always as proud of the colours he wears on his shoulder as the colours he wears on his breast. He knows that each brigade and battalion possesses a soul of its own, and he is proud to belong to his battalion and to worthily wear its colours. For these reasons I ask the privilege of dedicating this book to the officers and men of the First and the Fourteenth Brigades. Sister brigades they are, from the Mother State; with them I campaigned, and for them I have a proud affection.
Heroes of many a fight,--for those two Brigades will stand out specially in Australian History, the story of the Landing at Anzac, the Battle of the Lone Pine, Pozières, Fromelles, Bapaume, and Bullecourt. Some of the men drafted from the First to the Fourteenth shared in the perils of Gallipoli, and all are associated with the fighting on the Western Front.
For them all, I wish that they may fight on to the certain and glorious victory, and have the luck to return to Australia, the land of sunshine and opportunity—there to help in building up the Commonwealth in harmony with the principles of freedom for which they are fighting.
In spite of necessary suppression, or vagueness of names of localities, my comrades of the Fifty-fifth Battalion, to which I was attached, will recognize many of the incidents described, and I can only hope that reading what the padre has to say may cheer them in some lonely places, or help them to be happy though miserable in some indifferent billets.
JAMES GREEN.